Baby, I Just Don't Trust Myself With You
by DiaryOfLacey
Summary: Brandi's life has been one misfortune after another. A rocky relationship with Kozik that ended in the death of their child, his death, and now her unlikely connection to Tig. Spinoff of The Croweater Tales. Contains sensitive subjects so be warned!
1. Chapter 1

**Croweater:** Brandi

 **Full Name:** Brandi-Jeanne Louise McCall

 **Hometown:** Hickory Valley, Tennessee

 **Birthday:** August 13th

 **Height:** 5'8"

 **Hair:** Blonde

 **Eyes:** Green

 **Bust:** 38DD

 **Favorite Son:** Herman Kozik

 **Biography:** From a town in Tennessee that boasts a population of only 99 people and named after both of her grandmothers, Brandi McCall brought a slice of the South to the SAMCRO clubhouse. She was born the fifth of eight siblings to a farmer and his wife, and was eventually raised by her maternal grandmother in Chickasaw, Alabama when she turned 12 and began hanging out with boys, smoking, drinking, and doing everything she could to scandalize her conservative Christian parents. At 16, Brandi ran away from home and hitchhiked to California, eventually ending up in Seattle, Washington. She says she spent most of the next few years working as a waitress, a bartender, and a stripper, occasionally selling herself for sex to rich older men when she needed money to fund her drinking and partying habits.

Brandi was first introduced to the Sons of Anarchy when she met Herman Kozik, a member of the Tacoma charter, at a bar where she worked as a waitress when she was 20. He asked for her number and she gave it to him, because according to her, she liked "blonde biker boys" and he liked her Southern accent. Eventually he brought her around the SAMTAC clubhouse for parties, where she quickly fell into the hard-partying, hard-drinking crowd. She and Kozik developed a relationship, nothing serious, but they were "sorta-kinda exclusive". Two months into their relationship, Brandi discovered Kozik had a hidden addiction to heroin, and soon she was shooting up right alongside him. His fellow club members tried to help both of them get clean once they found out what was going on, and Brandi was able to briefly get herself clean (and Kozik did as well) when they discovered she was pregnant. She relapsed while three months pregnant, and their daughter Cheyanne was born at 26 weeks, 5 days, weighing only 2 pounds and addicted to heroin. State Social Services immediately came in when Brandi and the baby tested positive for heroin in the hospital, and Cheyanne was removed from Brandi and Kozik immediately. She stayed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit for several weeks, but when she was seven weeks old, Cheyanne died of complications from her premature birth and the course of medications being given to her to prevent withdrawals. The state of Washington considered pressing charges against Brandi for her daughter's death, but the week after Cheyanne's death, Brandi overdosed on heroin in an attempt to kill herself and was later declared to be unfit mentally to go through court proceedings.

During this time, she and Kozik had split up, and Brandi says she spiraled into a deep depression where she would go for days or weeks at a time without bathing, eating, or even sleeping. She attempted to kill herself three more times, twice by overdosing on heroin and alcohol and the third by slitting her wrists. She survived all three attempts, and after that she decided that she was going to get clean, get herself together, and do right for her daughter. After enrolling in a rehab program, Brandi served 180 days there and moved into a halfway house after her release. She spent 2 years there before she felt comfortable moving back out on her own, relocating to Charming, California with a friend she had met in rehab, Wendy Case.

Wendy was the ex-wife of the president of the Sons of Anarchy mother chapter, Jax Teller. Like Brandi, she'd also given birth prematurely because of drugs, but unlike Brandi, Wendy's son was alive. Brandi and Wendy lived together for six months, and even briefly had a relationship, but they parted ways when Brandi began hanging out around the SAMCRO clubhouse. She fell into a group known as the "croweaters", a group of women who hung around the men for sex or whatever else they might request. Wendy didn't agree with Brandi's lifestyle choices or the fact that she began drinking again, but their friendship was broken irreparably when Wendy discovered Brandi had slept with her ex-husband Jax at a party one night. Wendy then packed up and moved to Oregon, leaving Brandi on her own to immerse herself deeper in the croweater lifestyle. For the next few years, Brandi worked as a waitress and bartender, hung around the clubhouse and supplied the men with sex. She had successfully kicked her heroin addiction, though her alcohol consumption rapidly rose.

One evening, while the clubhouse was preparing to go into "lockdown", Herman Kozik walked back into Brandi's life. He had come on loan from the Tacoma charter as extra muscle, unaware that his former girlfriend and mother of his child would be waiting there. Their first few encounters were awkward, as Brandi was reluctant to let him back in when he had just walked away from her after their daughter's death, but soon they ended up in bed together, and after that they were always with each other and Kozik stopped her from being a part of the croweaters. He was off the needle too, and Brandi says these were the happiest days of her life, when he came back and they made a decent go of it. He went back and forth between Charming and Tacoma, eventually transferring to the mother charter so that he could stay in Charming with her. They moved into a home he bought, and he asked her to marry him. She got his crow tattooed on her hip, cementing her as an official "Old Lady" and no longer a croweater.

Two weeks before they were due to be married, Kozik was killed during the war with the drug cartel after he stepped on a landmine that exploded. Tig Trager, Kozik's longtime frenemy, broke the news to Brandi and told her that Kozik had asked him to watch out for her in case anything ever happened to him. Kozik's death caused Brandi to relapse once again into heroin addiction, becoming so depressed and despondent that Tig finally moved her into his house so he could keep an eye on her at all times. He would find her unconcious several times a week, usually able to rouse her or having to take her to the hospital so that Narcan could be administered. Tara Knowles, Jax Teller's now-wife and highly-lauded doctor at St. Thomas, began taking care of Brandi off the books so that the hospital would not get the law involved due to the astronomical amount of times Brandi came in overdosing. Brandi's "rock bottom" point came when Tig came home from work one night to find her high on heroin, attempting to cut the crow tattoo off of her leg with a razor blade and sobbing over a photo of herself and Kozik. She didn't manage to accomplish the job, just leave behind a patchwork of scars over the tattoo once it healed, and Tig immediately had Tara send Brandi to the psychiatric ward of St. Thomas, where she remained for several months. She was again weaned off of drugs, as well as diagnosed with and treated for bipolar depression.

Once she was released from the hospital, Tig again let her move in with him so that he could watch out for her, following Kozik's wishes. Brandi apologized for all that she had put him through, as well as thanking Tara for all her help. She stayed straight, still hanging around the clubhouse but being careful to lay off the alcohol. Occasionally she still took part of the fun as a croweater, but she and Tig had settled into a sort of domestic setup without actually saying they were in a relationship. They weren't exclusive, as he still slept around with the croweaters and she sometimes let herself be taken a dorm room, but everyone knew at the end of the night she would go home with Tig. He didn't take well to anyone being rude to her, or being rough with her, because despite their stormy past he was doing as Kozik asked and watching over his Old Lady.

After Tig's daughter Dawn was burned to death by Damon Pope, Brandi never left his side, taking her turn to comfort him as he spiraled in a psychotic depression. She didn't feel right in leaving him at his darkest when he had been there for her through so much. Tig gradually recovered in a few months, though he was never quite the same. His soft spot for Brandi had gotten even softer thanks to all her months of standing by him, and they gradually moved into a mutually exclusive arrangement. Brandi got a job working as a receptionist at Nero Padilla's Diosa escort service, and she gradually faded away from the croweater scene, though she remained close to Evelyn "Evie" Satterly, who she had become close to during her time as a croweater.

After the death of Jax Teller, most of the croweaters were sent away from the clubhouse and gradually left Charming, although Brandi stayed behind with Tig. She and Evie (who by this time had become the Old Lady of new SAMCRO President Filip 'Chibs' Telford) were two of the only croweaters who hung around, mostly due to their relationships with Tig and Chibs.

Tig and Brandi currently live together in Charming. She doesn't identify herself as Tig's Old Lady, as she still wears Kozik's crow tattoo and still says she loves him, but she says she has a part of her heart that will always belong to Tig because he took her in and cared for her in her darkest times after Kozik's death, and she will never be able to walk away from him because they need and depend on each other for stability now. They aren't interested in being married or even putting Tig's crow on Brandi's body, instead choosing to live in an "unofficially committed" state.


	2. Chapter 2

_Meeting Kozik_

There was one thing that could be said of Brandi McCall's life, and that was the fact that her entire life had been nothing but one unfortunate event after another. There had been happy moments, sure, but most of what she could remember about her life was nothing but sorrow and misery and pain. As the fifth child of eight siblings born to conservative Christian farmers, Brandi remembered her childhood as nothing but a haze of whippings with a belt, fervered church services and manual labor. Hickory Valley, Tennessee, a small town of only 99 people, had been so small that she felt like she was always suffocating. When she turned 12 and discovered the "bad boys" around school, she had jumped at the chance for some excitement. Drinking? Sure, why not, it helped her loosen up. Smoking? It was good for her nerves. Sex with anyone that would take her to the backseat of their car? It was fun. Everything she could do to anger her parents and scandalize her small town was exactly what she did. Brandi McCall was bigger than little old Hickory Valley, and so she was sent to live with her Grandma Jeanne in Chickasaw, Alabama. Grandma Jeanne was a little more lax than Brandi's parents, but she still didn't have the freedom she craved. So at 16, Brandi decided her only option left was to run away from home. With $100 stolen from her grandma's purse, Brandi made it all the way to Seattle, Washington before the guy she had hitchhiked a ride from put her out on the side of the road and left her to fend for herself. Thankfully, her rather impressive cleavage allowed her to get a job as a waitress, and she managed to find a rundown apartment and somehow she made the best of an otherwise godawful situation.

She had seen the leather-clad men in black at the bar where she worked; they often came in for drinks very late at night and a few times they had stayed for the midnight karaoke where she often sang. One of them had watched her more intently than the rest, sitting at the table and listening to all three songs she sang instead of leaving like his friends. When she'd put the mic back on the stand and returned to the bar to deliver a tray of drinks, she paused at his table to give him the beer he'd requested and was greeted with a smile. He accepted his drink with a "Thank you, sweetheart," his eyes roving over her shapely frame.

"Anything else I can get you, darlin'?" She could see his face peak with interest at her heavy Tennessee accent. Lots of men liked her accent, it was one of the reasons she made such good tips every shift. It had also earned her lots of money from rich old men who liked "Southern belles" and paid her to hang off their arm.

"Well I think I've had all I can hold to drink, so how about your number?" It was a cheesy line, and normally she would send him off with a smart comment, but she'd always had a thing for bad boys and there was something lurking behind his leather and blonde hair that she needed to know about. So she pulled the pen from her apron, scribbled her name and number down on the back of an order ticket, and left it on the table. He'd probably be the kind to call her up for a one night stand, but then again that was something she'd never shied away from. As she started to walk away, he grabbed her wrist and gave her another one of those smiles. "By the way, I'm Kozik. Herman Kozik."

"Kozik, huh? Strange name for a strange guy." With a laugh, she patted his shoulder and headed back to the bar. "Have a good night, Kozik."

Through the rest of her shift, she didn't think anymore about the blonde biker, helping her fellow waitresses shut down the bar around 2 a.m. Once they'd cleaned and locked up, she made her way to the parking lot, waving goodbye to the other girls as she unlocked her car. The engine made a frightful noise when she attempted to crank it, and she cursed under her breath as she tried the key two more times. Deciding to give it a few minutes and then try again, she looked around and saw that all the other girls had already left. That meant she would be alone should she need help, and her apartment was entirely too far away to walk at this time of night. Praying that the car would have enough life left to get her home, she tried the key again and cursed out loud this time when the engine sputtered and then went silent.

 _Think, Brandi, you've got to get home!_ For once in her life, she wished she'd listened when her dad was showing all her siblings how to work on engines. But she hadn't, and now she was stuck in the parking lot in the middle of the night with no way of knowing what was wrong or how to fix it.

A tap on her window nearly made her jump out of her skin, and she looked up to see the guy from the bar- Kozik, he'd said his name was- standing outside her car. He smiled and held his hands up as if to show her he was no danger, and she mentally assesed how easily she could get away from him before opening the door.

"Having car trouble, Brandi?"

"Was it that obvious? This piece of junk's been on its' last leg for months but I haven't bothered taking it in to the shop. I guess this is what I get for procrastinating."

"Well I can give you a lift home if you need it. I'm always game to help a lady in need." He gestured behind him to the Harley parked just across the lot, and Brandi decided she'd rather risk him being a murderer than stand here in the parking lot all night.

She reached into her car and grabbed her purse, locking the doors before turning back to face Kozik. "Thanks, I appreciate this so much. I live in Roxhill, it's not super far but I don't feel like walking that long way."

Producing a helmet, he waited as she strapped it on and then held his arm out. "Come along then, milady, your chariot awaits!" That earned a laugh from Brandi, and she was beginning to think maybe she'd dismissed him a little too quickly earlier. Once she was seated on the back of his bike, he sat down in front of her, cranking the engine and making her put her arms around his middle before they pulled out of the lot and onto the dark highway. It wasn't too long of a ride before they were pulling into her neighborhood, and she pointed out her apartment complex. Since her car was still at the bar, she told him to park in her reserved space, and once he shut off the engine she swung her leg over the back of the bike and unstrapped the helmet.

"Thanks again for the ride. I really appreciate it." She handed him the helmet back, then dug in her purse to retrieve the $20 bill she'd been left as a tip tonight. "I know this probably isn't enough to cover the gas, but it's all I have right now. I can pay you more after my next shift if you come back to the bar."

Kozik held up his hand and refused the money, reaching for the helmet on his handlebars. "No problem, doll, don't worry about it. I'm not about to take your cash, it's my pleasure to help out a lady."

As he went to put on his helmet, Brandi reached out and grabbed his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. "Well I can't let you leave without something, it's only fair for you helping me. Why don't you come inside?" The meaning in her words was clear and her seductive smile drove the point home. _So what if he thought she was easy? He was hot and he'd done her a favor and she believed in paying someone back. And she had to admit, that motorcycle ride had really done a number on her. If he wouldn't take cash as payment, she knew one thing that no man could refuse._

For a moment he just stared at her as if he wasn't sure if she was kidding or not, but then a smirk spread across his lips and he returned the helmet to its resting place. "I don't suppose I can turn down an invitation like that, huh?" He got off his Harley, letting Brandi lead the way up the two flights of stairs to her apartment door and taking in the rear view of her all the while. _She had a nice ass to match the tits, and she had curves in all the right places that he liked. He could see the hint of tattoos scattered around her body, and he figured that this must be his lucky night that she was inviting him in._ He waited as she unlocked the door, then followed her in the apartment. It was nicely decorated in an attempt to hide that it was shabby, but as a bachelor man any house with a floor that wasn't carpeted in fast food bags and random girls' underwear was a nice home. She dropped her purse on the counter before she turned back to face him, and without any conversation the next thing he knew she was in front of him and she was pressing her lips to his. He let her push him towards what he assumed was the bedroom, his hands grabbing at her ass through her black shorts. She pulled him against her using his kutte, well used to this routine of one night hookups and enjoying the feel of him. His hands fought with the button of her shorts as she loosened his belt, Brandi getting him out of his clothes quicker and then shedding her own. Kozik took in the sight of her body, framed in a set of black lace panties and matching bra, tattoos on her back, her leg, and on her ribs. She was a very beautiful girl, and he had to wonder what kind of guys she'd been with before that had reduced her to taking one night stands.

He didn't have long to wonder, because she was kneeling on her bed and pulling him onto it with her. Her lips were a distraction from his thoughts, and their southward journey was about the best feeling he'd had in a long time. Brandi was an experienced woman at what she was doing, he would give her that, and he was content to let her take charge. She didn't know it, but he'd shot up before he happened to pick her up, and he found himself lost in a daze of blonde hair and soft, warm skin. The vivid red numbers on the clock beside her bed ticked by as she pleasured him first with her mouth, then rode astride him as he came twice. As she removed herself from atop him, she seemed to realize something was off about his demeanor, but she chose to ignore it as she lit up a cigarette.

It wasn't her place to ask, after all.

She knew how to keep her mouth shut.

 _And that was how the story of Brandi McCall and Herman Kozik came to be..._


	3. Chapter 3

_Needles and Veins_

Brandi had done a lot of very wild things in her life; at a very young age she'd decided if she was going to be the black sheep of the family then she damn sure was going to do it up right. At 12, Michael Norris from down the street, who was sixteen, invited her to hang out with him and his friends one day after school, and it was that afternoon that she first smoked a cigarette or drank a beer. The boys all seemed to think she was "cool", and soon she was hanging out with Michael and his friends every day. The boys introduced her to weed, then to pills like Adderall and Xanax. And when she turned 13 and her body suddenly developed overnight, then they wanted to show her more; Brandi, at that time eager to please the people that had brought excitement to her life, then let Michael take her to the backseat of his dad's truck after a football game one Friday night and show her a new way to use her mouth. Halfway through they were caught by the school's security officer shining his flashlight in the window, but that was merely the first of many times. When she was 14, she ended up in Michael's bedroom, his mother down the hall too busy smoking crack to care that her son was fucking an underage girl. Brandi mistook Michael's lust for love, and so she took the pain and thought it was exceptionally sweet of Michael to not care that she bled on his worn sheets.

After Michael introduced her to sex, Brandi was hooked. It was fun, it was exciting, and Michael was soon sharing tales of her sexual appetite with his buddies. They too took an interest in the pretty blonde McCall girl, but Michael marked her as "his girl". Brandi wanted to try more things, to be with more people, but Michael wouldn't allow it. She was suddenly sporting bruises that weren't put there when they fucked, and more were added when he found out she was secretly having sex with his friends Kyle and Devon. Eventually her parents found out what she was doing with Michael, and the next week his mom and dad packed up and moved away with their son. Her father preached at her about how wrong and evil sex before marriage was, but Brandi simply stood her ground and told him she would do as she liked with her body.

Her sophmore year of high school, Blake Martin, the star quarterback of the Chickasaw High Chieftains, was caught in the locker room before the big playoff game with Brandi's lips wrapped around his lower anatomy. The coach lost his mind screaming at Blake, but the boy just gave him a smirk as he adjusted his pants, strapped on his helmet and took the field. Brandi picked up her pom-poms, fixed her ponytail, and joined her fellow cheerleaders on the sidelines to cheer their team to a 28-7 win over their archrivals. The other players heard of Brandi's good luck charm and wanted a taste of their own, and even the coach himself tried to make a play for her, though she wouldn't let herself sink that low quite yet.

The straw that broke proverbial "camel's back" that was her parents' ability to put up with her antics came the summer she turned 16. Reverend Thompson at the Hickory Valley Baptist Church had condemned her as a "sinner" and a "harlot" when he learned of some of the things she'd done, so it was quite a scene when the high and mighty reverend entered the sanctuary before service one Sunday morning and found his son Frankie and the McCall girl getting it on in the choir loft. Brandi would never forget the look on the older man's face when he slapped his son in the head with his Bible, spewing Scripture as Frankie fumbled for his dress pants and Brandi sashayed away in her absurdly short church dress. Services were canceled for the whole day while the reverend dealt with a "family emergency". When her mom and dad discovered this, they talked in hushed tones for several hours and then they appeared in her bedroom to tell her she was going to Alabama to live with her grandma.

So needless to say, Brandi was no stranger to excitement or danger, but it was a whole other story the day Kozik asked her if she wanted to try heroin.

 _It was harmless,_ he said, _it would make her feel good. He did it all the time and he was fine, so it wouldn't hurt her._

So even though a tiny voice in the back of her head was telling her to think twice, she sat crosslegged on her bed, the bed she now shared with Kozik since he'd moved into her apartment, and let him loop his belt around her bicep. "Hold this tight." He instructed her as he tapped at the inside of her elbow, finding a vein and looking up to meet Brandi's eyes. "You sure you wanna do this?"

"Yeah, I wanna do this." _As always, eager to please anyone who would give her their attention._ Her breath hitched slightly as he produced the syringe full of brown liquid, the needle glinting dangerously in the light of their lamp. Kozik paid no attention to her hand starting to shake nervously as he leaned over her arm, gently inserting the needle into her vein. She let out a gasp as it burned, the feeling of the drugs running through her blood a whole new kind of experience. Once the plunger was pushed all the way down, Kozik withdrew the needle from her arm, watching the hazy look form on her face as the heroin took effect.

" _Holy fuck."_

That first time using was all it took to get Brandi hooked.

She couldn't get enough of the high, and the coming down was too much to face. Every minute revolved around finding the drugs, doing the drugs, and Kozik. Her addictive personality meant she was zero to 100, from sober girl one day to relentless dope fiend the next. Her life was all about the next fix, the next time she could set a date with the smack.

The first time she could remember his brothers finding out about what they were doing was at a party the Tacoma charter held one Saturday night. Everyone was drunk and having a good time, but Brandi was itching for more. Kozik had told her his brothers had suspicions that he was back to his old habits, and they had to be careful, but he was putty in her hands when she turned on the charm. So as they danced among a crowd of Sons and croweaters, she wrapped her arms around his neck and whispered in his ear.

"I need a fix."

He pulled back to look at her, glancing around to make sure no one had heard her. "Babe, you know you can't say shit like that around here. I'm already under the microscope with the guys."

Pulling the puppy dog eyes, Brandi poked out her lip. "I know, that's why I whispered. Please? I know you've got some."

For a moment, Kozik hesitated, and then he took her hand and led her to the bathroom in the very back of the clubhouse. "In here." He pushed her inside, shutting the door behind them before he dug in his pocket and tossed a tiny plastic baggie of heroin on the counter. "There, that's all I got."

Brandi's face lit up, grabbing it up eagerly. "Do you have something I can melt it in?" Her eyes scanned the room, lighting on an empty beer can in the trash. "I got it!" She pulled the can out and stomped on it, flattening it out enough she could flick her lighter underneath it and melt the drugs in it. Drawing it up in the syringe she always carried with her, she paused to kiss Kozik happily on the lips. "You're the best baby!" She let him take off his belt and loop it around her arm, then slowly put the needle in her vein.

Just as she was through injecting, the door to the bathroom swung open and the Tacoma President, Lee, stood in the doorway. "Hey Koz, you better not be in here with some crow-" The older man's words were cut off as he saw what Kozik and Brandi were doing, and his eyes narrowed as he stepped forward and punched Kozik square in the jaw. Brandi screamed in surprise, the belt falling from around her arm as she jumped back. The hit swayed Kozik, but he didn't fall, and he regained his balance to give his President a guilty look.

Lee got right in his face, anger all over his face. "You little bastard! You told us you were off this shit, and now I come in here and you've got a needle in your girl's arm?! What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

That night, Kozik left the clubhouse with bruises after an ass beating from Lee, being shamed in front of his brothers and angry at Brandi. He didn't say a word to her the whole ride home, and didn't even help her off his bike like he normally did. Inside their apartment, he threw his helmet on the table, disappearing into the bedroom without a word to her. Brandi didn't know whether to follow him or not, instead dropping onto the couch and wrapping a blanket around herself. After a moment, Kozik appeared again in the doorway of their bedroom, leaning on the wall and just staring at her.

"What?" She arched an eyebrow, curious to know what he wanted now after ignoring her.

"You better be glad I love you, because I'm risking everything I've got to be with your ass." His voice was hard, and Brandi bristled at the way he spoke to her.

"Oh wow, thanks, Kozik. I'm so glad you're doing me such a favor by being with me. As I recall, you were the one that asked for my number and chased me!" Her blue eyes met his, a smirk crossing her lips as if to say she'd got the one up on him.

With a snort, Kozik gave her an equally smart ass smirk. "Oh yeah, Brandi, I really had to chase you! The same girl that let me fuck her just for a ride home from the bar? Trust me, nobody with a dick would have to chase your ass!" He could see his words cut her deep, but at that moment he was too pissed off to care.

"That's real nice, you fucking asshole! I sure as fuck didn't hear you complaining!" Brandi turned her head and stared at the door to keep him from seeing the tears burning her eyes. _He knew that when he said things like that, it hurt her. He sounded like her father, putting her down just for doing what she wanted to._

From the bedroom doorway, Kozik scoffed and turned to fall back into bed, muttering quietly to himself. "Yeah, sure, what man's gonna complain about easy pussy? I just didn't know it was attached to such a crazy bitch." He winced as he tried to find a comfortable position that didn't aggravate any of his sore spots, finally settling down and trying to fall asleep.

Brandi sat on the couch, finally burying her head into a pillow and sobbing. _She loved Kozik so fucking much, and now he was blaming her and putting her down just because he'd gotten in trouble with his club. How was she supposed to know Lee was going to come searching for them? She hadn't meant for any of this to happen._

She sat and cried for a long time, until finally her eyes were dry and burning and she curled up on the couch and fell asleep.

 _Tomorrow would be a better day._


	4. Chapter 4

_Cheyanne_

Two pink lines stared back at Brandi from a plastic casing and the only thing she could say was "Fuck." Her mind was cloudy, still trying to come off her latest date with the needle, but it was sobering to see the two little lines that had just turned her world on its head.

"Babe?" Kozik's voice came from the other side of the door, and she flinched involuntarily. "Babe, you okay?" _He was worried, worried she was shooting up where he couldn't see her._

"I'm fine." Her voice was rough and shaky, but clear enough that she heard him sigh and move away from the door. The little plastic test felt like hot steel in her hands, burning more than a needle full of smack ever could. _Pregnant. She was fucking pregnant._ _Koz was going to kill her._ Getting to her feet, she slowly approached the door, taking a moment to breathe before she twisted the lock and opened it.

Kozik was stretched out on the bed, watching some old movie on the television, comfortably between a high and coming down, but he sat up when she entered, alert to the change in her mood. He could see the shakiness in her hands, the dark rings around her eyes; she would need another fix soon before she got sick. "If you're sick, I gotta go out to get more-" He was stopped by Brandi holding up her hand, presenting him with a plastic stick with two pink lines. "What's thi-?" This time he lost the words as his mouth dried up, his mind registering what she was silently telling him. "I thought you were on the pill?"

Rolling her eyes, Brandi threw her hands up in the air. "For fuck's sake, Koz, if antibiotics will cancel out birth control, I think fuckin' smack will do the same thing!" She had never thought this would happen; if drugs took such a big toll on her body, how could her body grow a child? _Mother Nature was a real fucking bitch._ She didn't tell him that half the time she was so high she couldn't remember to take the damn pill, and other times when they were both desperate for a fix and had no cash she passed the birth control off as something else to get their heroin. _And now they were in a mess._

"I always wanted a kid." His voice was quiet, and she turned to look at him.

"So you want this?" Her question was met with a soft smile from him as he got up from the bed and came around to stand in front of her. His hand drifted to her stomach, and he nodded.

"Yeah, babe, I want this. You gotta stop the drugs though, ya know. We both gotta get clean." They had talked about getting clean so many times that by now it was just conversation. For a few days they would swear off the stuff and then one of them would cave and the other would follow. Usually it was Kozik that could last longer, and Brandi was always the one that gave in first. _Could they stay clean?_

 _It took weeks, but the two of them got off heroin, Brandi went to the doctor, and they actually began living life as normal people with a baby on the way. To Brandi it seemed as if Kozik could turn his addiction on and off like a switch, never seeming to show any signs of withdrawal. For her, it seemed as if she was dying. She was horribly sick from the baby, horribly sick from the drugs, and just sick of being sick. She tried so desperately to do what he wanted and stay clean, but the temptation was too strong and she could never fully get the dragon off her back._

Melanie, another girl that hung around the SAMTAC clubhouse, called Kozik and let him know she hadn't seen Brandi all day. She was supposed to have come by after her doctor's appointment, but no one had seen her. He worried maybe something had gone wrong at the doctor; after all, she had just told him that she was past the 12 week mark and so they were safer from a miscarriage, perhaps they'd been wrong to celebrate so early. Setting out to find her, his first stop was at their apartment, and when he found she wasn't there, he headed for the rundown side of town where they bought their drugs.

He found her at their dealer's home, passed out on the couch and high as a kite. Thankfully she hadn't overdosed, and he managed to bring her around and get her back home safely. She escaped from his grip as soon as they were inside their apartment, and she locked herself in the bathroom sobbing.

She was weak.

She let the junkie take over the mother, the two halves of her raging wildly against each other, and the junkie always seemed to win.

 _26 weeks. Just over 6 months pregnant. Babies weren't supposed to come that early. But Cheyanne had, aided by her mother's uncontrollable addiction to H._

Brandi was finally able to see her daughter, Kozik pushing her down the hall in a wheelchair to the NICU where their daughter- Cheyanne Louise Kozik- was encased in a plastic incubator. The bundles of tubes and wires surrounding her were bigger than their daughter, a tiny 2 pound thing with almost-transluscent skin. The first thought that struck Brandi was how much their little girl was shaking. A nurse passed by them, and Brandi was quick to grab her hand. "Is she cold? Why's she shaking?"

The nurse paused a moment as if to figure out who Brandi was, then quickly pulled her hand away and hurried away to the office nearby. It wasn't a minute before the door to the NICU opened, and a stern-looking woman in a brown suit walked in.

"Miss McCall, Mr Kozik? I'm Greta Jones, the hospital's social worker. Are you aware your daughter was born addicted to heroin?"

Her abrupt words caused Brandi's chest to feel like it was going to explode. _Cheyanne, addicted already? Oh God, what had she done?_ "Heroin?"

Greta nodded sternly, no trace of sympathy or understanding on her face as she stared at the two of them. "She tested positive for heroin soon after she was born. You tested positive twice for heroin as well, Miss McCall. The state is stepping in and removing your daughter from your care."

Brandi felt Kozik stiffen behind her, his voice tense and angry when he spoke. "You can't just take our baby away like that! It must've been a mistake!" Brandi could've slapped him for his attempt to have faith in her, but she knew that he knew it was the truth. She _had_ relapsed. She _had_ continued using all this time. He knew what she had been doing and he knew that _she_ was the reason their daughter was born way too early. Their daughter was being taken away because Brandi was a weak little girl who couldn't say no to a needle full of smack.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Kozik, but I have no choice but to remove your daughter from your care for her safety. The state will take over her care immediately."

 _For seven weeks, Brandi was allowed to see their daughter only while Ms. Jones stood watch over her shoulder. Kozik made himself scarce, too deep in a relapse to be there for Brandi or Cheyanne. Brandi forced herself to stay clean, knowing the social worker would pick up on it the instant she showed up high and thus lose her only way to see her daughter. The doctors gave her tiny little baby heavy doses of medication to prevent her from going through withdrawals and to treat the weak heart that her mother's drug use had given her. And then one day, when Brandi entered the ICU nursery to see her daughter, she was instead greeted by a team of doctors surrounding her daughter's incubator and frantically working to save her life._

 _It took 30 minutes, and finally the social worker came over to where Brandi was pressed against the wall praying fervently, took her hands in her own, and in the kindest voice Brandi had heard from her in seven weeks, told her that Cheyanne had died._

From that moment on it was as if someone had switched off the lights in her world. The social worker told her that she could bury Cheyanne wherever she chose, her daughter finally in her care in death as she hadn't been in life. Then came the court documents, telling Brandi that the state of Washington was considering pressing charges on her for negligent homicide and neglect of a child. Kozik packed up and left her at their ratty apartment alone, gone back to the drug houses and taking refuge in his club. In one fell swoop, Brandi had lost everything she'd ever had.

Kozik was gone.

Her sobriety was gone.

But most of all, Cheyanne was gone.

The first time she picked up the needle again, it was like a welcome release when she injected the demon that rode her back into her veins and she felt the blank darkness of a high coming on. In her car in some dark parking lot, she laid the seat back and closed her eyes. She'd done more than she'd done in a very long time, and for the first time in her life Brandi prayed that maybe she wouldn't wake up. The next thing she knew, she was waking up back in the very same hospital she'd had Cheyanne in, Narcan being adminstered to bring her back from an overdose. A concerned man passing by had noticed her in her car, and had called 911 to come and rescue her.

When she realized what they were doing, she fought and kicked and screamed and cried, begging them to let her go and let her die and be with her daughter in peace. But the nurses ignored her fevered words, patiently and kindly administering their care to yet another addict brought in and raging incoherently.

Once she was alive and coming back around, they put her in a room and told she was on a 72 hour psychiatric hold for an attempted suicide.

She grumbled something about them letting her finish the job and curled into herself. The social worker, the same old sour-faced Ms. Jones came to see her once again, silently looking over the haggard girl in the bed and consulting with her nurses. She took notes and then returned to the office, telling the judge and the prosecutor what she saw and what she thought.

 _The poor girl's lost her mind,_ she said, _she doesn't know she's in this world._

 _Crazy. She was declared mentally unfit to face trial._

 _And just like that they let her go and told her that her daughter's death was not legally her fault, though her soul and her conscience might say different._

She had narrowly escaped years in prison, but to Brandi the rest of her life would be a jail cell. She'd lost the man she loved, she'd lost her daughter, she'd lost every damn thing she had in one fell swoop. And yet, she was too weak to quit the thing that had cost her everything.

When she had nothing left, heroin was always there to pick her up.

 _Once an addict, always an addict._


	5. Chapter 5

_Welcome to Charming_

Without Kozik, without Cheyanne, Brandi was lost in a downward spiral.

She sat motionless in her apartment, another half-empty bottle of Jack Daniels sitting on the small dining room table in front of her beside a needle and a residue-covered spoon. This was what she'd been doing all day, staring blankly at the wall. Piles of dishes, laundry, and various other items littered her apartment, as she'd lost the will to do much of anything. Most every day she stayed high, numbing the pain of everything that had happened. Her long blonde hair was greasy, matted in knots from her lack of attention to herself. Her face was littered with scabbed-over pimples she'd picked at until they bled, black eyeliner smeared around her green eyes and enhancing the dark circles from lack of sleep.

She was, quite literally, a mess.

 _Why did she have to keep waking up in the mornings?_ With all of her heart, Brandi wished that she could just close her eyes and never open them again. An escape from the pain, an escape from the heartache, an escape from the constant, clawing need for drugs. She'd already tried to end it three different times and nothing had fulfilled her desire to just stop living. Twice she'd jammed a needle filled with a megadose of heroin into her arm, and yet somehow her body had overcome it and she'd come back from the brink. So she moved on to something a little more manual. _Fill the bathtub with water, numb herself with some more whiskey, and drag that razor blade across her wrists; easy, right?_ Easy enough until her landlord had come banging on the door about water dripping through the downstairs neighbor's ceiling and used the master key to come inside and find her submerged in the bloodstained water. The hospital once again locked her up in the psych ward for 72 hours and attempted to get in touch with Kozik, the emergency contact on her records, with no luck.

 _Another addict, another crazy junkie_ ; _that was all she was._

The suicide watch hold gave her enough time to really think about herself and her life and what she was doing wrong. Things weren't getting better, they were getting worse and worse the more she tried to mask the pain. Maybe it was time for a change, to do something other than dig her own grave. The people at the hospital were nice enough to help her find a rehab center, and she went off with nothing but a photo of Kozik and Cheyanne in her pocket and hope in her heart for something better.

They put her in a shared room with another junkie, a pretty blonde from California named Wendy. Like Brandi, her old man was a Sons member, but he was Vice President of the Redwood charter, the mother chapter; Jax Teller, a man Brandi had heard of but never seen. Wendy had given birth to a drug-addicted baby boy, Abel, but unlike Brandi, Wendy's son was alive and well and in the care of Jax. They bonded almost immediately, the 180 days of solitude made a little easier by the prescence of a friend. Withdrawals, loneliness, missing her daughter; Wendy made it all a little better with her encouraging smile and kind heart. The therapy helped Brandi to let go of some of her guilt from Cheyanne's death, and helped her to find some peace in her heart so that she didn't need the drugs to numb herself. And in the blink of an eye it seemed, she was suddenly six months clean. The staff at the rehab center told her she'd be moving into a halfway house until she could find a job and get herself somewhere to live, and so Brandi packed up her few possessions and headed off to her new life.

She got a job at a doctor's office as a receptionist, she cut her blonde hair and dyed it chocolate brown, she gained weight and stopped looking like a skeleton; for the first time in a while, Brandi's life was actually looking up. Wendy kept in touch with her, and eventually asked her if she wanted to leave Oregon and try California living. With no ties binding her anywhere, Brandi said yes, and then it was on to a new state and another fresh start.

 _Wendy had an apartment of her own, and she and Brandi got along good together. So good, in, fact, that four months after Brandi moved in, she and Wendy were sharing a bedroom and dating._

Sometimes Brandi wondered if Wendy had forgotten she was supposed to be her girlfriend and not her mother. Brandi was managing her addiction, hadn't slipped up in over two years, and yet Wendy was constantly wanting to know who she was with, where she was going, and what she was doing. It was like being fourteen again, with her parents questioning every move she made. So Brandi did what she always did: she rebelled.

Wendy had talked a lot in rehab about her ex-husband and his club. It was one of the reasons she and Brandi had bonded; they both loved outlaw bad boys. So when Brandi heard about a huge party one Friday night at the SAMCRO clubhouse, she got ready and was gone before Wendy came home from work. She'd been to the clubhouse before for a few other parties since coming to Charming, and she was recognized and welcomed back again at this particular one. Lots of men in leather kuttes filled the parking lot and the clubhouse itself, leading Brandi to assume something special was going on as she read off city after city from the men's backs.

It didn't take long for her to fall back into party mode, a couple of shots and dancing with a handsome biker or two enough to bring out her wild side again. She knew Wendy would know where she'd gone, and that it would be another night of arguing and being chastised by her girlfriend when she got home, but until then she was damned sure going to enjoy herself. The stream of men dancing with her never faltered, until finally a handsome blonde appeared at her shoulder and offered her another shot.

 _"Dance with me, darlin'?"_

Brandi had heard enough stories about the dashing Jax Teller that she knew this was him. _Wendy was right, he was fucking gorgeous._ So she accepted his offered drink and dance, and it wasn't long before Jax gave her that charming smile he had and took her hand to lead her toward the back of the clubhouse. She'd seen the other women follow this pattern, and Wendy had told her about the "croweaters", as they were called, and what they did. She guessed that was what Jax thought she was, so she let him lead her forward, because after all, what kind of woman would she be if she turned down an opportunity with someone like him?

 _Wendy was going to kill her. She could feel it._

The next morning, Brandi woke up on the couch in her and Wendy's apartment, her hair in a tangled mess and her head pounding like a jackhammer. She couldn't remember having gotten home, and she gingerly tried to sit up without the room starting to spin.

"You have fun last night?" Wendy's sharp voice cut across the room, and Brandi noticed her girlfriend sitting at the small kitchen table for the first time.

"What happened?" Her memories of the previous night were foggy, no doubt helped by the shots and beers and weed she'd gone through last night.

"You went to a SAMCRO party, you got absolutely fucking trashed, and then you _fucked_ my ex-husband." Wendy's words were spoken with enough poison to kill, her dark eyes glaring at Brandi. "He brought you home on his bike. He didn't know we lived together, went white as a ghost when he saw me open the door." She stood up from the table, stalking towards Brandi with her arms crossed over her chest. "How could you do that to me? You know everything I went through with him and how I feel about him!"

Brandi rolled her eyes, blowing off Wendy's anger. "Jesus Christ, Wendy, give me a fucking break. I thought you were supposed to be over Teller by now, supposed to be drowning the wrongs done to you by men in pussy now?" _Her head hurt too bad to be arguing with Wendy, and besides, what was Wendy's problem anyways? If Jax had been such a terrible husband, and Wendy supposedly didn't care about him anymore, why did it matter if he and Brandi fucked? It wasn't like he was asking her to marry him, he just wanted easy sex and she was drunk enough not to care._ "It was a party, shit got a little crazy. Don't get so worked up about it."

Wendy scoffed, holding her arms out in disbelief. "Are you fucking serious right now, Brandi? We're supposed to be in a relationship, you're not supposed to be out here fucking other people just because you're drunk! I'm actually trying to make shit happen in my life and you're acting like you're still a fucking junkie with a party habit!" Her words were harsh, and she knew they would cut Brandi deep, but at that moment Wendy didn't care. Brandi had crossed a line that never should've been breached, whether they were friends, roommates, or a couple. Of all the men in SAMCRO, Brandi knew that Jax was off-limits for a laundry list of reasons.

"Look, could you stop fucking screaming at me? I'm not a junkie anymore, but that doesn't mean I have to have a stick shoved up my ass and not have any fun. I admit, I got too drunk last night and made a mistake. I'm sorry. But you're acting like I fucking killed the Pope or something, we were just having fun. It's my fault so just let it go." The clock on her phone read 1:45, which meant she had an hour to shower, change clothes, and get to work at the diner. She reluctantly hauled herself up from the couch, making her way to the bathroom with Wendy following.

"Brandi, I'm serious. I can't do this shit anymore if you can't stop the partying. I'm trying to do right and you're just making it harder on me." Wendy paused a moment, looking at the floor before addressing Brandi again. "I'm going to Oregon, I got a job offer in Portland to be a drug counselor. I'm gonna take it. You're gonna have to pay for the apartment yourself or find somewhere else to go."

Brandi whirled on her, one eyebrow raised. "Oh so you just weren't going to tell me this? Gonna let me come home and find the apartment locked and my ass back on the street again? Thanks Wendy, you're a real fucking wonderful girlfriend." She slammed the bathroom door in Wendy's face, getting into the shower as she pondered what to do. She'd have to find somewhere to live, something that wouldn't be easy considering she barely got by on her waitressing tips. _Leave it to Wendy to fuck up her life. This was why she had given up on loving anyone, because she always ended up on the short end of the stick every single time._

She had to rush and get ready in order not to be late for work after she spent too long in the shower thinking, eating a handful of aspirin in the car to try and kill the major headache she had. Thankfully the diner wasn't busy when she arrived, and she gulped down two cups of coffee that Rita, the head waitress, offered. She tried not to think about Wendy and her dilemna as she waited on customers, the slow but steady flow of people keeping her just busy enough to keep her mind off things. After about an hour, she let Rita know she was taking a smoke break and slipped out the back door of the diner. The first drag of nicotine helped her calm down, the blonde leaning back against the brick wall and closing her eyes.

Footsteps in the gravel reached her ears, and she opened her eyes to see Jax Teller making his way towards her. He flashed a smile as he lit his own cigarette, taking in Brandi's appearance. "Rita told me I'd find you back here."

Brandi gave him the side-eye, a little irritated that she had to speak to the person that had helped cause all these problems. "Can I help you?"

"I didn't know Wendy was your girlfriend." He leaned on the wall beside her, the two of them gazing out over the supermarket parking lot behind the diner.

"Well you didn't exactly take down my personal history before you stuck your dick in me, now did you?" Brandi was blunt, and her words made Jax choke back a laugh. She gave him another side-glare as she took another drag off of her cigarette. "Thanks to you, I'm gonna be out on the street. Wendy's going to Oregon and I didn't exactly get the feeling I was invited to go too."

"The club can help if you need somewhere to stay." His words were sincere, and he offered Brandi a slight smile.

His actions did nothing to soothe Brandi. "Didn't know bikers took charity cases from their one night stands."

With a laugh, Jax stood up and moved in front of her so that she was forced to look him in the face. "It ain't charity. Tig told me you used to be Kozik's Old Lady in Tacoma. Think of it as us helping a brother's family."

The mention of Kozik's name shocked Brandi so much she dropped her cigarette. When her brain managed to form words again, she looked down at her feet with guilt. "I ain't his family, haven't been for a long time. I fucked that up too."

Jax took her chin in his hand and turned her face back up to look at him. "Listen, it doesn't matter if it was last week or ten years ago. If you need help, the club'll help you for Kozik." He let go of her, crushing his own cigarette beneath his white sneaker as he turned to go. "Come by the clubhouse tonight and we'll talk. Just don't tell Wendy." He winked at her and finally got a smile back, disappearing back around the corner of the diner as Brandi got ready to head back inside.

 _Maybe things would finally go right for her._

She went and talked to Jax that night, and before long she was in an apartment that he and the club helped pay for, with their only request in return was that she show up to all the parties and help entertain guests as well as the club members. She got along well with most of the guys, especially Happy who enjoyed her Tennessee accent. The circle of croweaters took her into their midst, and she became especially close to Evie, a petite redhead from Texas. It was an easy existence, spending her days waitressing until it was time to go and party at the clubhouse. Wendy was gone to Oregon, and Brandi never spoke to her again.

For a few months, she and Happy dated, and the Tacoma Killer paid for Brandi to have breast implants. But there was never a solid connection, and they went their separate ways after a while, though she was still sometimes his companion in bed when he particularly wanted her. She stayed off the hard drugs, but she liked to drink and she liked to smoke weed, which was never in short supply around the clubhouse. It kept the pain of losing Kozik and her daughter away, it killed all the bad memories in her head, it made life a lot easier to live.

And besides, living on the fringe of society was actually kind of fun.

 _It certainly did keep her life exciting._


	6. Chapter 6

_Knight In Shining Armor_

It was like seeing a ghost.

That was the only way Brandi could describe that night's events at the SAMCRO clubhouse. She had been behind the bar, helping Evie clean up, when a familiar voice reached her. "Yeah, so I was on my way down here.." She couldn't hear the end of whatever the conversation was, but when she turned around and saw Kozik standing there talking to Tig, she nearly fainted. It had been years since she'd seen him, and now here he was.

Tig saw her face pale over Kozik's shoulder, his brother from the Tacoma charter blissfully unaware that his former girlfriend was just across the room. He decided that it would be best to go ahead and let him know, so he held up his hand to stop whatever chatter Kozik was making and grabbed him by the shoulders to turn him around. It took a minute, but finally Kozik's eyes locked on Brandi and she stared back at him like a deer in headlights.

"Brandi?" Kozik's voice was small, quiet, almost as if he was scared to say her name too loud.

Tig could tell Brandi was just as nervous, but she raised one hand in a half-wave. "Hey." For a moment, there was silence, and then Brandi turned and high-tailed it to the back of the clubhouse.

Kozik finally turned back to look at Tig, disbelief and anger all over his face. "You didn't think it was important to tell me she was here?! Fuck, man, five years and now she just happens to be here?" He ran his hands through his blonde hair, hundreds of memories suddenly brought up from the depths of his brain.

 _He hadn't seen Brandi in over five years. Not since the night he packed his clothes, got on his bike, and left her behind in their Seattle apartment. Not since their daughter died. Cheyanne... He tried not to think of their daughter often, of what could've been had the both of them been able to stay clean. But now, after years of running from his past, it had smacked him in the face at the sight of her._

Finally looking back to Tig, he gestured in the direction Brandi had gone. "She clean now?"

Nodding, Tig turned and Kozik followed him to the couch in the corner where they could talk without others hearing. Once they were sitting, Tig lit a cigarette before he continued. "She's doing good. She's been clean about three years, I think. Drinks a hell of a lot and smokes some weed, but she's been off the needle. What about you?"

Kozik scoffed audibly. "Of course. I got off the shit, you know that don't fly in this life." For a moment he was quiet before he piped up with another question. "How'd she end up here?"

Tig took a drag of his cigarette, flicking the ash in the ashtray. "Well, from what I've heard, she ended up here after rehab, lived with Jax's ex Wendy and they had a thing. Once Wendy packed off to Oregon, she started coming around here. Everybody likes her, she's a sweet girl. Happy bought her those tits, though. But they called that shit off a while ago. Now she just hangs out like all the other chicks." He paused a moment to exhale smoke, then looked back at Kozik. "You should talk to her, man. She's always seemed like she still had a flame going for you." Then he was getting up and gone as Clay called his name from the chapel, pointing back to the dorm rooms. "Go after her."

Kozik sat there for a minute more, racking his brain for anything that seemed like it would be good to say to Brandi. _Hey, sorry for running off and leaving you? Wow, long time no see?_ Nothing he came up with sounded like it wouldn't offend her. But he finally got up, searching the back of the clubhouse until he found her outside smoking. Walking over to sit beside her on the picnic table, he lit his own smoke before he spoke to her. "You look good."

"Yeah, not shooting smack in your veins four times a day really does wonders for your looks." She didn't turn to look at him, the line of her jaw tense.

With a forced laugh, Kozik tried to lighten the mood. "Well yeah, I guess it does." Then it was quiet for another moment, the silence awkward and almost painful. "I didn't know you were in Charming now."

"Didn't have anywhere else to go once I got out of rehab. A fresh start here seemed to be as good an idea as any. I didn't expect to see you here either." She was guarded, obviously so, but he couldn't blame her. He knew he'd hurt her deeply when he ran out after Cheyanne's death, but at that time neither of them had been equipped to deal with something like that.

"Yeah, I'm here while the club's on lockdown. Maybe if you're around we can talk some more?" He hopefully looked over at her, Brandi finally turning to meet his eyes as she got up and stomped out her cigarette.

"I'll be pretty busy with so many people here. Besides, I don't know if we can fix five years of shit in a week or two, you know?" And then she turned on her heel and went back in the clubhouse, leaving Kozik alone with his thoughts.

 _Maybe she was right. Maybe their old wounds couldn't be patched in such a short period of time. Maybe the past was better left in the past. Right?_

But he couldn't leave her alone. The same irresistible energy that had drawn him to her that first night they met, in the rundown bar in Seattle, drew him to her again in the SAMCRO clubhouse. The first week he was down, over and over he tried to strike up a conversation with her whenever possible, and though she was evasive and short at first, eventually he wore her down. She finally gave up the cold shoulder and agreed to talk. And as the days went by and his Charming stay went on, the conversations got longer and longer.

 _She told him about rehab, about Wendy and coming to Charming, about starting to hang around the clubhouse and how she was one of the croweaters now. He told her how he'd gotten clean, worked his way back into the good graces of the club, how he'd turned his life around. They talked about Cheyanne, about their dark days, about the good times. They talked until there was nothing left to say and then they were in her bed, he was inside of her and it was like they'd never been apart._

They wouldn't say, but everyone could tell Kozik and Brandi were together again. Around the clubhouse, she stayed almost glued to his hip, an unspoken agreement between Kozik and his brothers in black keeping Brandi out of the dorm rooms. She never asked, but she knew he'd made it clear she was his and his only again.

After he made several trips between Tacoma and Charming, he came to her one night and showed the new patches on his kutte. He was now a SAMCRO member, patching over so that he could be with her and never have to leave. Wanting a permanent place for the two of them, he went and bought a small house that he fixed up, surprising her with it when her lease at her apartment was up.

 _This was the life she had always wanted and dreamed of with Kozik, something that seemed so out of reach years ago. She went back to working in a doctor's office, and he came home to her every night._ _A few weeks in, he asked her if she would get his crow tattoo, the universal symbol of an Old Lady._

Freddy drug the tattoo needle over her skin, finishing up the shading on Brandi's crow. He wiped it down and then offered Brandi a mirror, asking her what she thought. The smile on Kozik's face told her it was perfect, and when she saw the black bird with wings outstretched across her hip, it was confirmed. _She was officially an Old Lady, the tattoo just as meaningful as a wedding band._

"I ain't losin' you again, babe."

Kozik's statement came out of nowhere once they were at home, Brandi turning to look at him from the bathroom where she was busy taking off her makeup. "Well I certainly hope not. It took too long to get to where we are to do this all over again." She rinsed her face off, straightening back up as Kozik came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

His eyes roved over her reflection, taking in her body in only a pair of black panties. She looked a lot different than she had the first time they'd been together, her bones no longer visible and a pathway of soft curves filling out her shape. An intricate chandelier tattoo was inked over her sternum, covering the scars from her implants, while the newly done crow spread proudly over her hip. She had a cluster of roses tattooed over the inside of her left arm and their daughter's name tattooed across her inner elbow on the right side, both of which he could tell had been done to cover up the scars from her druggie days.

"Enjoying the view, perv?"

Her playful jab pulled him from his thoughts, Kozik kissing her bare shoulder. "Always, baby. You're gorgeous." He took his arms from around her, turning her around to face him before he lifted her up to sit on the counter. "You're mine forever, B. Right?"

Brandi's eyebrows drew together in confusion, a gentle smile crossing her face as she took Kozik's face in her hands. "Of course, baby. I love you more than anything." She kissed him softly, but Kozik pulled back.

"Then marry me."

His words were so sudden it shocked her, Brandi staring at him blankly before her mouth dropped open. "Are you serious? You want to marry _me_?" Her voice was incredulous, as if she couldn't believe that he really wanted to be with her for the rest of his life.

Taking her hand in his, Kozik brought it up to his lips and pressed a kiss to her knuckles. "Yeah, I do. I want you to be my wife. I'm serious as fuck about this this time, Brandi, I'm not leaving and I'm not running out on you again. I wanna have another go at this thing with you. Maybe even try at being a dad again."

For a moment, Brandi was speechless, tears filling her eyes before they began slipping down her cheeks. "Of course I'll marry you!" Then she was in his arms, her face pressed into his chest as he held onto her.

 _She was finally getting her happy ever after._


	7. Chapter 7

_Landmine_

There was no right way for him to break the news to her. No matter what combination of words his brain churned out, none of them seemed to be anything he could look Brandi in the face and say.

 _Kozik was gone. A cartel landmine had exploded under his feet._

How the hell was he supposed to tell Kozik's fiance that the love of her life had been killed in such a gruesome fashion. There wasn't even anything left of him to bury, how would she have any closure?

But from somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of his soul, he pulled the strength to stand at the front door of the house Kozik had purchased just a few months ago and tell Brandi that her blonde bad boy was gone, there would be no wedding, and all her plans were over. He expected tears, he expected her to fall apart, but what he didn't expect were the animalistic wails that came from deep in Brandi's chest, the blonde stumbling backwards, blindly knocking over the hall table. He caught her before she fell to the floor, her arms flailing wildly as she tried to get away. It took all his strength to hold her until she finally broke, her entire body going limp against him as she buried her face in his chest and soaked his shirt with her tears. He called Evie, one of the only people he knew to be Brandi's friend, and asked her to come and watch her, and once she arrived he left with promises to check in on Brandi every day. Desperate to get away from Brandi's grief while his own emotions had not yet surfaced, he went back to the clubhouse and joined the rest of his brothers in a sea of alcohol that helped numb all the repressed memories from his long and difficult history with Kozik.

The next day he'd found her sprawled on the kitchen floor in the process of overdosing. A visit from the EMTs revived her, but it was only the first in a long series of the same experience. Finally Tig decided it was too much to have to wait for an ambulance to drive the fifteen minutes to Brandi's house, and so he packed up everything she owned and moved her into his house, a mere five minutes from the hospital. He struck up a deal with Tara, where the doctor would supply him with Narcan she secretly pilfered from the hospital so that he didn't have to put another overdose visit on Brandi's health records and risk the police getting involved. Kozik had left _him_ the responsibility of Brandi's care, and so the thought of her being taken away to jail was not an option.

It wasn't the ideal solution to Brandi's troubles, but it was one that he felt comfortable with, and it kept his promise to Kozik. Brandi was hard work to keep alive, but it was a burden he managed fairly well, if he had to say so himself.

 _Until the night everything went completely off the rails._

When Tig came through the door after work that night, he knew immediately something was wrong. Making his way through the house, he came to the guest bedroom where Brandi had been sleeping and pushed the door open, gasping audibly at the scene before him.

Brandi, her eyes glazed in the telltale cloud of a high, was curled up against the wall, one leg folded under her and the other stretched out. A pool of blood was beneath her, a gaping patchwork of bloody gashes covering her entire hip and thigh, clearly the work of the razor blade clutched in her opposite hand. A crumpled picture of herself and Kozik lay in her lap, bloody fingerprints marking the edges. He managed to recover himself and rush to her, Brandi barely registering his prescence as she sobbed.

"Brandi, doll, what are you doin'?" He snatched the blanket from the bed, trying to wrap it around her leg while pulling his phone out of his pocket and frantically dialing Tara's cell. At first he didn't think she had heard him, but then her hazy green eyes met his.

"I wanted my crow gone. My old man's dead, why do I deserve his crow?" She lifted the razor again towards her leg, but Tig shoved her hand away and managed to get the blade out of her grip. She didn't seem to have any strength left, and her head dropped back against the wall as he heard Tara pick up on the other end of the phone.

 _"Doc, you gotta get here now."_

Tara had come as soon as he'd called, but the damage Brandi had done to herself was more than she could safely treat at home. "She's got to be taken to the hospital, or she's going to bleed to death." She called for an ambulance, telling Tig she would ride with Brandi and for him to meet them at the hospital.

Once they arrived, Brandi went into emergency surgery to stop the bleeding and repair the blood vessels she'd sliced open, her wounds stitched closed and bandaged. Tara came to the waiting room to let Tig know that Brandi was okay, but that the hospital was putting her under an emergency psych hold and it would be 72 hours before he could see her.

After the 72 hour hold was over, he was allowed to visit Brandi. When he walked in, she was sitting on the bed, her bandaged leg propped on a pillow. Tara had told him she'd been medicated, but that she should be relatively aware to talk to him. Her green eyes were bright when she turned to look at him, a small smile crossing her face. "Hey."

"How are you feelin'?" He sat down beside her on the edge of the bed, trying to keep himself from looking at her leg.

She shrugged, her fingers absently playing with the hem of her shirt. "Really sore. They're trying to keep me off big doses of pain meds, so I'm feeling it. The sickness is getting better. Other than that, it's just a lot of crying." For a moment, she stared at the bed, then she looked up and met Tig's eyes. "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have to clean up my mess. I just didn't know how to deal with him being gone."

The tears welled in the corners of her eyes, and without thinking Tig leaned forward and hugged her. "Don't apologize. You gotta be tough." He held her to him for a moment, until she pulled back and wiped her hand underneath her eyes.

"I'm trying. Just ready to be out of this hellhole." She looked up to the ceiling, obviously trying to hold back more tears. "I just don't know how I'm gonna do going back to our house alone, without him."

Tig reached over and took her hand, waiting until she looked at him. "Then don't. You can come and stay with me until you get better and on your feet."

Brandi was momentarily quiet with amazement at the softer side of him, shaking her head. "Oh no, I can't do that to you. You already had to take care of me on the needle, I'm not gonna make you deal with this too. I'll go back to Washington or something, maybe even go back home to Tennessee." Her drawn face and flat tone betrayed the dread she felt at either of those options.

"No, you're not. He would've wanted you to stay here, where he wanted to be. I promised him to take care of you and I'm not breakin' it now. You'll stay in Charming." His tone made it clear that he wouldn't be talked out of his decision, and Brandi hugged him as tight as she could.

"You're a good friend, Tig."

And so it was decided, and when Brandi was released from the hospital a few days later, Tig was waiting out front of the hospital by his motorcycle. Once Brandi was safely sitting behind him, he drove her to her and Kozik's house, where he waited as she packed a bag with everything she'd need for a while, and then he took her back to his house.

He was so dedicated to taking care of her like his brother had asked that he had switched around the furniture so that Brandi could take up residence in the master bedroom, and he could stay in the guest room where she'd been so that she wouldn't have to look at the bloodstain he still hadn't been able to completely get out of the carpet. He tried not to mention Kozik, watched Brandi carefully for fear she would find a way to find heroin, and tried to deal with his own grief. Watching Brandi gave him an excuse not to pay attention to his own feelings, too busy saving her from her sadness that he couldn't feel sad himself.

After a month or so of crying herself to sleep and fighting the overwhelming need for drugs, Brandi asked him to take her to the clubhouse. At first he tried to talk her out of it, but she was set on the idea. So he waited as she dressed up and put on makeup and fixed her hair for the first time in forever, and when she came down the hallway he was taken back by how stunning she was when she tried. She settled herself on his bike, and he drove her to the clubhouse like she asked. At the door she paused, taking in the scene of the party. It had been a while since the club had thrown a party, but Jax and Tara had recently gotten married and so it seemed right to celebrate. Brandi hesitated, but then Tig watched her draw herself up, put on a smile, and fall into the crowd heading to the bar. He went in the opposite direction, giving her space though he was careful to keep his eyes on her. Some of the other brothers had noticed them come in and they all made their way over to hug Brandi, the blonde greeting each of them with a killer smile that didn't betray how much she was still hurting.

That night, Brandi got absolutely wasted, finding the mind-numbing medicine she needed in a bottle instead of a needle. Tig watched her gradually lose the heaviness he'd seen since Kozik's death, with Brandi at the heart of the fun by the end of the night. And when the party broke up, he carried her to his dorm room to sleep it off, tucking her under the blanket as her head lolled on the pillow, already half-asleep.

"Thank you, Tiggy." She half-smiled, one hand reaching up to touch his face but being so drunk she instead touched the air beside his face.

"Don't mention it. Sleep it off, doll." He was just shutting the door and going to sleep on one of the couches when her slurred voice spoke out from the darkness of the room.

"Kozik was lucky to know you, and so am I."

He didn't answer, instead quietly shutting the door and going down the hall.

 _He only hoped she was right, and that he would always be able to keep her safe._


	8. Chapter 8

_Unlikely Heroes_

After three months of living with Tig, Brandi decided that it was useless to keep holding onto the house, and she sold the home Kozik had bought for them. She packed up all her personal things and all the things Kozik had left behind, putting them in storage and moving what she needed into Tig's house. Somewhere along the way of recovering from Kozik's death, her addiction, and her grief, she and Tig had reached an understanding of sorts. They didn't tell anyone they were together, didn't give themselves a label or anything similar to a normal "relationship". But the guys at the club knew that though they might drink and flirt with Brandi all night, when the party was over she would climb on the back of Tig's bike and he would take her home with him. It was so gradual neither of them really paid it much attention, but one night a drunk prospect from another charter wouldn't take no for an answer from Brandi and Tig went into a rage, nearly beating the kid's face in before Jax and the guys separated them.

 _"She's my girl, dickhead!"_

His final words as his brothers dragged him away from the kid had stuck with Brandi, and later that night when they were home she found him icing his raw knuckles in the living room. He didn't say anything as she approached him, watching her as she lifted the Ziploc bag of ice off his knuckles and gave his hand the once-over. She laid his hand on her knee as she replaced the ice, looking up to meet his eyes.

"Does it hurt too bad?"

He shook his head. "I've had worse."

For a minute she was quiet, and then she smiled softly. "So I'm your girl now?"

"It was just something that came out. I didn't offend you, did I?"

He seemed a tad uncomfortable, but Brandi instead slid closer to him and cupped his cheek in her hand. "Of course not." She looked away for a moment, and when she looked back at him, there was something sparkling in her green eyes that he hadn't seen since before Kozik's death. "It's nice knowing someone still wants me."

If he hadn't been looking, it would've sounded like she didn't finish her sentence, but as she spoke she shifted closer to him, and before he could react she was against his side and kissing him. _She wanted to know someone still wanted her, in a sexual way._ It became clear to him as she moved to sit in his lap, her hands cradling the back of his head and her fingers gently pulling at his hair. He didn't stop to think as he nudged the ice off his hand, running his fingers up her legs until he was squeezing the softness of her thighs. The need was radiating off of Brandi, and he didn't let himself think of his late friend as she kissed him deeply, Tig getting up off the couch with Brandi in his arms and making his way to the bedroom.

As he laid her back first on the mattress and crawled over her, her soft voice asking him to "please don't stop" reached his ears and so he did as she asked, pulling her T-shirt over her head before he entered her. Her nails clawed at his back as he thrusted into her, her voice in his ear continuously begging him not to stop. And when she finally climaxed, he poured himself into her and then collapsed next to her on the bed.

There was nothing but the sound of their heavy breathing in the room, Brandi's head on his chest as her legs wrapped around his. When he pulled the sheets up over them, Brandi kissed him again before settling back down to go to sleep. "Thank you."

He turned to look at her, raising an eyebrow. "Thank me for what?"

"For making me feel wanted. For helping me realize I can move on and that it's okay to be happy with you and not feel guilty."

Her words stunned him into silence, and he lay awake staring at the ceiling as she fell asleep beside him. _Perhaps she was right. It had been a long time since he'd actually cared about someone other than himself. He had been holding back how much he cared about her for fear of disrespecting Kozik's memory. But clearly this whole time she had needed to know he wanted her, and to feel like she could move on and be happy even if it wasn't with Kozik._

After that night, everyone knew Brandi was off-limits. She still hung around as one of the croweaters occasionally, but the other guys knew she didn't go to the dorms unless it was with Tig. They had an unconventional relationship, since neither of them would officially say they were a thing, but it went as an unspoken rule. The both of them worked, helping each other move past their backgrounds to some kind of happiness.

 _Until Dawn's death._

Brandi didn't ask questions, but she'd discovered what happened from Evie. Losing his daughter in such a gruesome fashion broke whatever sanity Tig had left. He'd distanced himself from her and everyone else, though Brandi did her best to get him to talk to her. The rejection by his only other daughter, Fawn, further drove him into a depression. And then they were all picked up and sent to Stockton. When the Sons came out of the prison without Opie, Tig came home to Brandi a changed man. He told her what had happened with Pope, told her everything he'd done, and asked her if she still wanted to stay. He'd given her every reason to leave, told her that bad things always seemed to happen to the people close to him.

And even then, she said yes. He had never abandoned her during her darkest days, and she wouldn't abandon him.

It was hard, working through Dawn's death, Opie's death, and the upheaval of the club. There were days when Brandi questioned whether or not he even wanted her there. But she never gave up on him, never gave up pushing him out of his depression. Clay was ousted as President, Jax took the reins, and things seemed to be okay. Tig found his place again, getting used to taking orders from Jax, and Brandi was always there when things became too much for him to bear alone.

They discussed it and they made the agreement that Brandi would never wear Tig's crow. She would be his Old Lady, but she would always have Kozik's crow on her hip. It seemed too disrespectful to Tig to have the tattoo changed or covered up, and so they decided she would keep the tattoo but would be his Old Lady in name. Her life with Kozik would always be a dream she carried, but Brandi recognized that at some point she had to move on without him. Tig never complained when she talked about Kozik, or things they had wanted to do, or even her daughter. He let her spill her feelings, and then he would remind her that he needed her too, and he was grateful that they had been able to make something good come out of Kozik's tragic death.

 _Jax's death changed life for them all._

Tig took over the Vice President patch, second-in-command to Chibs, the new President. He told Brandi that Chibs was planning to marry Evie, who had been his comforter and his closest confidante since Jax's death, doing much the same that Brandi had done for Tig all these years. He also struck a deal with Marcus Alvarez, who'd purchased Diosa, to allow Brandi to keep her job as the receptionist. They moved into a nicer house, and settled into a domestic routine- at least, as close to domestic as Tig was willing to get. It was a welcome change from the chaos of the last few years, and gave both of them a sense of normalcy they both desperately needed but weren't sure how to achieve.

 _It was unconventional, it was different, but it was them._

Brandi often thought that life had a funny way of working things out. She'd spent so long in love with Kozik, going through hell and highwaters with him to finally get the "white picket fence" dream, and then it had all been snatched away. But then out of all of it came Tig, the most unexpected person she would've ever thought that would take on the burden of caring for her and watching over her.

She had a sordid past, full of wrongdoing and mistakes. He had a dirty, bloody history, with his own share of mistakes, some greater than hers.

But here they were together, making this thing work in a life filled with dysfunction and chaos and bloodshed.

 _Romeo and Juliet, they were not, but Tig and Brandi had their own kind of fairytale._


	9. Chapter 9

_Life After Love And Loss_

They weren't domestic by any means, but Brandi and Tig were comfortable together. He knew he could come home after a long day of whatever dirty work the Reaper demanded, and she would be waiting to rub his shoulders and twist her fingers through his curly black hair until he fell asleep in her lap. She knew that when her demons came calling, when the temptation that was only found in a syringe and a plastic baggie started beckoning her into the abyss, she could find safety in his arms and he would pull her back from the brink once again. Tig was always aware that Brandi would love Kozik forever, that she would always carry another man's crow on her hip, but he was also aware that she loved and needed him too.

The date stared out at him from the wall calendar, as if it was a blazing neon light. It was like a prescence, something he couldn't ignore. _7 years today._ He knew Brandi would be withdrawn, quiet, as she always was on this day. He had known last night that she was already retreating into her shell when she seemed to be a hundred miles away every time he spoke to her. The anniversary of Kozik's death never seemed to get easier on her, though now he could trust her to be alone without fear of her overdosing or hurting herself. The first two years, he had spent this anniversary saving her from overdoses, desperately keeping his promise to his friend by saving the life of the woman he'd loved. By the third year, she'd gotten off the needle, and instead started substituting other ways to get "high". He'd come home to find the stereo turned up to full volume- nearly rocking the windows from their frames- and Brandi knee-deep in a bottle of the strongest whiskey in the house. It was one of the few nights she allowed herself to drink heavily, and between the music and the alcohol she did her best to drown the pain. Other times she would beg him to take her for a ride on his motorcycle, and when he was hitting around 90 mph, she would fling her arms in the air and imagine she was flying. Adrenaline gradually took over the need for drugs, and she temporarily pushed thoughts of Kozik to the back of her brain. Sometimes she would again turn the stereo on as loud as it would go, blaring rock music (Def Leppard was normally her go-to) and pulling out dance moves from her stripper days on top of the coffee table. She would strip herself down, then she would pull Tig to her until they were twisted up in bed and she was riding him until a climax took over the thoughts in her head. Brandi's various ways of drowning Kozik's memory changed from year to year, and Tig never knew what he would come home to on the day of Kozik's death.

She lingered in bed this year, and he turned from the calendar to pour a cup of coffee and head to the bedroom. She was still sleeping, spread across the black sheets of their bed with her blonde hair fanned over the pillow, and the blankets thrown back to reveal her naked frame. He paused to take her in, thinking to himself that while Brandi's body wasn't perfect by any means- she'd lived a hard, fast life that had left its' share of marks on her body- there was something about her that could make someone overlook the scars. A small group of scars marred the inside of both her elbows beneath the tattoos there, betraying the fact that she had spent years addicted to the needle. The delicate insides of her wrists were covered in a latticework of raised white lines from her days of cutting, her right wrist bearing three deeper scars from her attempt to kill herself after her daughter's death. Kozik's crow, spread across her left hip, was marred by tiny scars, a reminder of trying to slice it off her hip while high. Healed acne scars, now barely visible all around her chin, evidenced her drug-induced habit of picking her face. But past the motley of scars that told her past, Brandi was still beautiful, especially to a fellow scar-carrier like Tig. Her face was left relatively unharmed by her addictions- aside from her chin- and she had the tight, fit body that had invited all the men during her time as a croweater.

Apparently feeling his scrutiny, Brandi's green eyes fluttered open, a small smile pulling across her face as she reached for the blanket and pulled it over her. "Stop staring at me."

With a crooked grin, Tig crossed the room and held out the coffee to her. "Then don't tempt me like that, dollface." She took the cup from his hand and sat it on the nightstand, instead picking up a cigarette and lighting it. Tig sat down beside her, waiting as she took a long drag and exhaled a plume of smoke into the air before he placed a hand on her knee. "You staying home today? Or you wanna go with me to T-M?" She could hear the actual question he was asking her beneath his words; _is it safe for me to leave you home today?_

"I'm okay. I'm gonna get dressed and go run some errands, I'll come by the garage when I'm done." She leaned forward to kiss him, her fingers brushing the scruff on his chin comfortingly. "Besides, you hid all the razor blades in the house and we only have plastic spoons, so I'm safe from any of my vices." Her joke managed to relieve some of the tension and worry from his face, but she knew he'd be on edge all day as long as he wasn't able to keep his eyes on her. Tig was a cold, hard man, and there weren't very many things in life he cared about. His club, yes; his brothers, always; and now her. Since Kozik's death he had become her protector, her watchdog, and her companion. She was always thankful for everything he had done and continued to do for her, but sometimes he really did overthink things; he only felt comfortable using an electric razor around her and while they had nice forks and knives, their silverware drawer held only plastic spoons. He called them "precautions", she called it "smothering"; after all, she was over a year clean since her one-time relapse and had shown no signs of giving back in to her demons.

Finally she convinced him to go to work and leave her by herself, and when the door was shut and the roar of his Harley faded down the street, she went back upstairs and dug her wooden box out from the top shelf of the closet. Opening the lid, she spread its' contents across the bed, pictures of her and Kozik littered across the sheets. There they were the month after they met, at a SAMTAC party with both of them downing shots. One of them at another party, Brandi draped across Koz's lap with the dreamy smile on her face giving away that she was high. There were pictures of Cheyanne, of Brandi looking like a withdrawn ghost holding her daughter while coming off the needle. And then, the happier ones, when Kozik came back to Charming and he and Brandi started over. They were at T-M, always draped over one another like two kids in love. Photos of them at Gemma's dinners, sitting on his bike, one of Brandi showing off her engagement ring. Photos of moments in her life that were now nothing but memories, Kozik gone, her daughter gone. Nothing left but memories and scars and pain. Another life, one she had put behind her, a precursor to the life she lived now with another man, in another world.

Every year she looked at these photos, every year she tried to remember what she had gone through, and every year she tried to remember that she was in a better place now. She shuffled all her photos together and shoved them back in the box, returning it back to its spot in the closet and finding some clothes for the day. She found a pair of jeans, tossing on one of Tig's old SAMCRO T-shirts that she tied up on the side. Deciding she'd go to T-M and see if Evie was around and wanted to have lunch, she carried her now-cold cup of coffee to the kitchen and poured it down the sink before searching for her purse. She was careful not to look at the calendar, trying to make this a good day this year. _This year she would try not to lose herself in grief, she would try to be normal._ Once she'd found her keys and her purse, she headed out to her car and backed out of the driveway, lighting another cigarette as she drove towards town. Their house was on the outskirts of Charming, away from the hustle of downtown, but it was a quick ten minute drive to the garage. Pulling into the gate, she parked beside Evie's Jeep, grinding out her cigarette under her shoe before heading towards the office. As Chibs' wife, Evie had taken over the running of T-M's office, and like Gemma she could usually be found there.

Chibs greeted her as she passed the car he was working on, offering her his customary cheek kiss. "Mornin' love, how are ya?"

His question was careful, and Brandi shrugged. "I'm makin' it. Is Evie inside?"

"Aye, she's busy with the paperwork as usual. She's got Jack with 'er." He then gestured to the clubhouse door with the wrench in his hand. "And if yer lookin' for Tigger, he's in there."

"Thanks, Chibs. I'll see ya later." She let the President return to his work as she headed for the office, knocking on the door before she went inside. Evie was at the desk, Jack playing in his swing nearby. "Hi my baby!" Brandi paused to pick Jack up, playing with his little hands before turning to greet Evie. "Hey, Vee."

Evie smiled, pausing from what she was doing to get up and hug Brandi. "Hey babe, it's good to see you." She was gracious enough not to ask Brandi once again how she was, just watching her carefully as she sat down in the chair by the door with Jack in her lap. "Are you happy to see Aunt B, Jack?" They both laughed as Jack smiled and giggled in Brandi's arms, the blonde kissing the baby on top of his head.

"I swear he makes me so happy, Evie. He's the sweetest little thing." The smile on Brandi's face didn't hide the expression in her eyes, and Evie knew without saying what Brandi was feeling.

"Have you ever...ya know...thought about trying again?" Evie was careful with the question, not wanting to push Brandi over the edge on an already emotional day. For a moment she didn't think her friend had heard her, but then Brandi looked up and met her eyes.

"Nah, I don't think so. I got a shot at being a mom and look what I did, fucked it all up." She laughed as if to blow off the seriousness of the conversation. "Bein' a mom ain't for me. I'll just be Aunt B to this little peanut and any more kids you wanna get outta Chibs before he's over the hill!" She shot Evie a playful wink, bouncing Jack on her knee.

Evie couldn't help but laugh, deciding to let the topic drop and turning back to her paperwork. "So what do you and Tig have going on tonight? He asked to get off early today."

Looking up from the baby, Brandi shook her head. "No clue. He didn't say anything to me about getting off early, maybe he's got club shit to do. I practically had to run him out the door this morning to leave me alone."

With a smile, Evie shook her head. "Imagine that, SAMCRO's toughest soldier all soft and squishy over you. You must be workin' some good magic on him." Both girls dissolved in a fit of laughter, interrupted as Rat entered the office with a stack of papers in his hand.

"Am I interrupting something?" He looked back and forth between the President's wife and the Vice President's girlfriend as he laid the papers on Evie's desk and spoke to her. "I just came in to give you these orders. Chibs needs all these parts ordered so we can get these cars done."

Once she recovered from her laughter, Evie nodded and reached for the orders. "Yeah, tell him I'll put a rush on it."

As he left out, Rat turned to Brandi. "Oh, and Tig's looking for you. He saw your car outside and was checking in on you."

"Tell him I'll be outside in a minute." Once the newest member of SAMCRO had disappeared back into the hustle of the garage, Brandi got up from her chair and returned Jack to his swing, pressing a parting kiss to the top of his head before she headed for the door. "I'll see ya later, Evie. I gotta go reassure Tig I'm not in here shooting up smack in front of the baby." Rolling her eyes playfully, she pointed to her hair. "I swear he's gonna give me gray hair before I'm 40. And by the way, you wanna get lunch tomorrow? I was gonna ask today but I guess he's made other plans."

Evie couldn't help but laugh at her friend, shrugging her shoulders. "Ya know he loves you, B. It's actually nice to see him acting human for once. And we'll get lunch tomorrow, meet me here around 11?"

With a parting wave, Brandi nodded. "Sounds like a plan!" She headed outside in the bright sunshine of the parking lot, shielding her eyes from the light as she looked around for Tig. He was easy to spot coming across the parking lot, curly hair blowing in the breeze. A smile crossed his face when he saw her, and he greeted her with a gentle kiss.

"What are you doin' here already? I thought you had errands." He lit a cigarette as he spoke, his eyes skimming over her arms quickly, doing a track mark check, though not quick enough for her not to notice.

"I decided to come see if Evie wanted to have lunch. She's busy today so we're just gonna go tomorrow. Why are you getting off early? You said last week Chibs was pushing everybody to put in more hours with the holidays coming up." She deftly snatched the cigarette from his fingers, giving him a wink as she took a long drag.

Running a hand through his hair, he avoided her eyes. "I just wanted to spend some time with you today. I was gonna surprise you."

Brandi smiled at his gesture, wrapping her arms around his waist. "Well thank you for the surprise, but you don't have to babysit me, babe. If you need to work I'll be fine, you're only a phone call away." She tilted her head back for a kiss, finally letting him go and heading to her car.

Tig wanted to trust her, he really did, but he was afraid history was going to repeat itself.

 _Once an addict, always an addict._


	10. Chapter 10

_Demons Came Calling_

Brandi was going to keep her word to Tig, she really was, but somehow she started thinking of Kozik on her way back home and before her thoughts cleared she found herself in Oakland; the place where the Mayans and the One-Niners ran the heroin trade.

 _The place where her favorite demon could be found._

Being back in the town where she'd scored so many times, it was like a drug itself. And before she realized what she was doing, almost as if she was on autopilot, she was on her way back to Charming with a plastic dimebag tucked safely in her purse. It was a rush in itself, knowing that the drugs were _right there_ , in her possession. She had to keep herself from driving 100 to get home, knowing if she were to attract the attention of the cops it would end in handcuffs as it had so many times before. It didn't take very long to reach home once she crossed the Charming limits, and she nearly sprinted in the house with her purse in hand. Making sure the door was locked, she dug the baggie out of her purse and dropped it on the table, going straight to the silverware drawer and snatching it open. _Fuck, Tig had to have missed at least one spoon._ There were none in the drawer, and her eyes roved over the kitchen in search of where he could have put them. She landed on the cabinet over the fridge, the one she could never reach and Tig always had to go in for her. With a sneaky grin, Brandi hoisted herself onto the counter, then reached over the fridge and snatched the cabinet open. A black box sat inside, and when she pulled it out and opened it, there was the whole collection of silver spoons missing from the silverware drawer. Pulling one out, she carelessly tossed the box onto the top of the fridge before hopping down and returning to the table to drop the spoon beside the bag of smack. Pulling her lighter from her pocket, she mentally ran through the list of what she needed as she added it to her layout. _A needle._ _Where could she get a needle?_ There was no way Tig had left one anywhere in the house...Unless! Taking the stairs two at a time, she tore into the bedroom and quickly punched the numbers into the lock of the safe under Tig's side of the bed. When the door popped open, she pulled out the emergency first aid kit Tara had given Tig when she was overdosing every other day, digging through it and successfully finding a needle in the bottom of the kit. Apparently he hadn't thought to hide _everything_ from her.

Back down the stairs she went, nearly out of breath from all her wild searching as she made it back to the table and sat down. Like remembering how to ride a bicycle, she dumped the heroin into the spoon, flicked on the lighter, and melted it before drawing it up into the needle. She yanked her shirt off and twisted it into a tourniquet, cording off her arm above the elbow. Her mind blanked as she tapped at the inside of her elbow, searching for a vein amongst the littering of scars. It was almost a drug in itself, the process of getting ready to shoot up, just as addictive as the heroin itself. Finally she managed to find a vein that wasn't damanged, and she took a deep breath as she picked up the needle and prepared to stick herself. But something came over her, like a cold hand down her spine, and a voice in her head that sounded a lot like Kozik's screamed 'NO!" It startled her so much that she dropped the needle to the floor, and the clatter of the plastic casing hitting the floor seemed to snap her out of her robotic mode. After a moment it seemed to register in her mind what she was doing, and horror washed over her. As if it was on fire, she ripped the shirt from off of her arm, scrambling out of the chair so fast it fell backwards to the floor. _What was she doing?! How could she do this, on today of all days no less?!_

 _Tig...Tig...Where was Tig? She needed Tig! Fuck where was her phone?_ Like a maniac she dumped the contents of her purse all over the tile floor, digging for her phone as frantically as she had gathered her drug supplies. Finally her fingers closed around the phone, and she speed-dialed Tig's number. The two rings seemed to last for eternity until there was a click on the other end and then his voice came. "Hello?" Even with the sounds of power tools and car engines in the background, the sound of his voice soothed her like nothing else. It calmed her from her hyper-overdrive state, and she realized her hands were shaking around the phone.

"I need you. I brought smack in the house." She could hear a clang, presumably him throwing whatever tool was in his hand to the ground, and then a hurriedly-yelled goodbye to Evie and the guys.

"It's okay, baby, I'm coming. Don't do anything until I get there, do you hear me? Go in the other room and lay down. Do not touch that needle, Brandi, I mean it. Don't you dare touch that needle."

His words were sharp, and she couldn't help but start crying. "I'm sorry, I'm so fucking sorry! I'm so fucking stupid!" She could hear him start to say something else but then she snapped the phone shut and threw it across the kitchen in rage at herself. She was such a fuck-up, look at what she'd done! On the anniversary of Kozik's death, the man she'd loved and who had pushed her to stay clean, who had stayed clean for eight years himself, she had taken up the needle again after a year. _You stupid, stupid bitch! You fucking junkie whore!_ The familiar words invaded her brain; they always came marching in after a date with the drugs.

It took all her strength to walk out of the kitchen, leaving the needle lying in the middle of the floor amidst all the wreckage she had created, and go upstairs to their bedroom. She turned the water in the shower on as hot as it would go, and then she stripped her clothes off and sat down in the tub. The droplets stung like fire as they hit her skin, and she was soon as red as if she'd been sunburned. _You deserve to be in pain, you stupid bitch! Trying to stick the needle in your arm again, you weak little junkie!_ Her thoughts painfully bounced around her brain, and all she could do was sit beneath the spray and sob, great heaving wails that tore out of her like the cries of a wounded animal.

Tig had never been a praying man, but damnit if he didn't pray all the way home to whoever it was that was up in the sky that Brandi didn't stick that needle in her arm. He couldn't live with himself if she'd shot up, because that would be betraying both the woman he loved and the man he'd called his best friend. And that was one of the few things he just couldn't live with. He barely remembered to put the kickstand down on his bike before he was barreling up the steps, jamming his key into the lock so fiercely he was surprised it didn't break off. Once the door was open, he hustled inside, eyes scanning the room in seconds for any sign of Brandi. A kitchen chair lay sprawled in the floor, the contents of her purse scattered everywhere. He was quick to spot the open cabinet and the box he kept all the spoons hidden in, and he cursed loudly at the residue-covered spoon and lighter on the table. _Fuck, where was it? It had to be here, she wouldn't have stuck in her arm. At least he hoped not._ Finally after a few seconds of sweat-inducing worry he spotted the needle- still full of the brown liquid that had its' hold on Brandi- lying discarded by the stove. With a deep sigh of relief, he picked it up, squirting all the liquid inside down the drain and running water behind it to make sure it was gone. He tossed the needle on the table, deciding he'd come back for it later after he checked in on Brandi.

The sound of the shower running reached his ears, and he headed upstairs- much calmer now- to find her sitting in the tub, head bowed over her knees, as now-cold water rained over her. She raised her head when he turned the spray off, and another sob tore out of her as she sprang forward into his arms. "I didn't do it, I didn't do it! I swear to God, I didn't do it!" She kept repeating the feverish words to him, as much a confirmation to herself as to him that she had avoided the temptation. "I didn't do it!"

"Shhhh, baby, I know you didn't. I know you didn't do it. I'm so proud of you, sweetheart." He rubbed circles on her back with one hand, the other caressing her wet hair. It was then that he realized he was shaking almost as much as she was. He'd been so worried that she'd relapsed, but she _hadn't._ He'd done his job once again, she was safe and still clean. Her fingers grabbed at the fabric of his work shirt, her face buried into his shoulder as she sobbed. Managing to get her out of the tub without letting go of her, he used one hand to find a towel and wrap it around her as they sat in the floor. She was shivering now, from the cold instead of from horror, and her cries had quieted to snuffles as she calmed within his embrace. Like cradling a baby, Tig sat on the bathroom floor and held Brandi to him, gently rocking her as he felt her relax.

"I'm sorry."

Her words were quiet, so quiet he almost couldn't hear her, and she finally raised her head to look at him with red-rimmed, puffy eyes. Pushing her wet hair back from her face, she carefully met his eyes. "I made a mistake. I just proved why you don't trust me to be alone. I'm sorry. I thought I was past this shit."

Taking her face in his hands, he kissed her forehead gently. "Babe, you're never gonna be past this shit. It's gonna hang off your back for the rest of your life, but you're strong enough to shake it off when it comes calling. Look, you stopped yourself today! You're stronger than you think you are."

That got a weak smile from her, and Tig managed to get up from the floor and pulled her up to her feet. Adjusting the towel around her, he led her into the bedroom, sitting her down on the bed. "Why don't you get dressed and we'll go get something to eat?" She nodded, and he judged that it was okay to leave her alone to dress herself. Heading back down the stairs, he began picking up the mess in the kitchen, righting the chair and collecting all the contents of her purse before he turned to the table. The lighter he returned to Brandi's purse, taking the spoon and throwing it in the trashcan along with the needle. Removing the bag from the can, he tied it up and walked it outside to the big trashcan on the sidewalk, deciding he didn't want it to even remain in the house. Brandi's discarded shirt he threw in the washing machine, and the box of spoons he decided to stash in the garage. He felt more at ease once everything was cleaned up, and he was just about to head back upstairs when Brandi appeared in the living room. She was dressed now, wearing a slouchy blue Teller-Morrow sweatshirt and black leggings with her damp hair twisted into a bun. She'd even managed to put on some makeup, her chin scars hidden beneath foundation and her piercing green eyes even more noticeable thanks to black eyeliner and mascara.

"Are you ready?" He noticed she wouldn't let her eyes drift to the kitchen, her fingers twisting the hem of her sweatshirt over and over. It was very clear she wanted to be out of the house.

"Yeah, let's go." Grabbing his helmet from the table by the door, he waited as Brandi got her purse and her own helmet, leading her outside and waiting as she settled herself on his bike. The tension in her body relaxed when he cranked the engine and it roared to life, and she wrapped her arms around his middle as he backed out of the driveway and headed back towards town.

 _Another crisis averted._

 _Another year she stayed clean and alive._

 _Another year he honored his friend._

 _It sure was hard work living with a ghost always on your shoulder._


End file.
